Category: News

Operating from Hong Kong, BitMex was founded in 2014 by web application expert Samuel Reed, ex banker Arthur Hayes and Ben Delo whose background spans across building high frequency trading systems. This dynamic trio brought over 40 years worth of financial experience to the project to provide investors and traders with access to the global market using only Bitcoin. BitMex incorporated in Seychelles and is unregulated in any jurisdiction at present.

BitMEX, short for Bitcoin Mercantile Exchange, takes inspiration from the CME group which is also known as the Chicago Mercantile Exchange.

At the time of writing BitMEX has surpassed all competitor exchanges with its daily trading volume exceeding $1.2 billion dollars (~200,000 BTC).

The majority of cryptocurrency exchanges accept a wide range of digital assets for making deposits into the hot wallet however BitMEX currently only allows Bitcoin. However this has little impact on its user base as it is targeted more at professional traders with financial experience. The products BitMEX offers are based around derivative trading, more specifically Bitcoin futures, perpetual contracts and BitMEX UP and BitMEX down contracts.

In short derivative trading is an agreement between two separate parties that requires one party to purchase the underlying asset (Bitcoin) and the other to sell that asset on a date in the future. This doesn’t have to be tied to a physical products but for the example below it is to make understanding the concept easier.

The best way to explain Bitcoin futures is using common day to day grocery shopping. If I gave you $20 dollars for 100 eggs ( Yup! I love eggs 🙂 ) the transaction is immediately settled, but with a futures contract the settlement is agreed at a specific time in the future for a set amount meaning two elements are the price and date of delivery.

For example a humble egg farmer may be worried that the egg consumption could drop or rise in the future for any reason and thus could take advantage of this by locking the price with the buyer which means a more financially stable company. The other party would agree to this price as they may think the egg price could change in their favour determined on the type of bet. Fast forward to the future, let’s say the consumer demand for eggs rocketed due to a health trend, this might mean the price of eggs drops as sellers try to shift as many eggs as possible, the farmer is not affected by this as he locked in the price with a futures contract.

The above example of a futures contract works exactly the same but for Bitcoin, it could be based on rumour, hearsay, demand, news, regulation or anything that affects the price of Bitcoin. It essentially opens an arena for various parties to bet on the outcome based on speculation.

How to Sign Up to BitMEX

To setup an account with BitMEX, users need to register on the website by providing an email address, password, country of residence and full name. Once you have activated the account through email you can proceed with trading as no KYC or AML checks are required to deposit or withdraw funds.

BitMEX currently does not allow traders from the United States to register as it does not function within the legal framework. This is not necessarily a bad thing but could be down to a number of factors such as over zealous regulations by the SEC. It has been noted on social media that people in the US are bypassing the IP checks with a VPN.

How to Use BitMEX

Users can trade a wide variety of digital assets including Bitcoin, Cardano, Tron, Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum, Litecoin and Ripple cryptocurrencies against fiat currencies such as Chinese Yuan, US Dollar and Japanese Yen.

Unfortunately if you are new to financial trading then BitMEX will feel overwhelming but for those who have dabbled with financial instruments before it is easy to get to grips with. We do not recommend using BitMEX as a beginner unless you are very well versed in leverage trading.

All trading instruments can be found by clicking the trade tab once logged in.

To open an orderbook click as specific asset such as Bitcoin from the top pane, this will display the most recent trades in the right hand side tab followed by the trading chart and orderbook to the left. The charts can be used to analyse historical trading data.

You will also notice in the top right a customise button which allows the user to choose their viewing preferences with full control of the orderbook widget, depth chart, price chart, recent trades and positions & open orders. The trading chart data is fed directly from TradingView which is a recognised and trusted 3rd party data platform.

When a user places a trade on the BitMex platform it can be viewed in the trading interface with the option to view active and filled orders including the stops which are in place. All active orders can be canceled by the user at any point with the analysis of whether it is in red or black

Futures and Swaps

As previously explained a Bitcoin futures contract will enable a user to sell or buy Bitcoin in the future at a predetermined price. Users can leverage up to 100x on these contracts.

Perpetual swaps are not dissimilar to bitcoin futures other than that they have no settlement or expiry date but they trade along with the underlying reference Index Price whereas futures diverge from the Index price.

Prediction based Binary contracts can be also traded but they settle at 0 or 100 and designed for making a bet on any given event. Binary contracts are traded with zero leverage, a 0.25% taker fee, a, 0% maker fee and 0.25% settlement fee.

Leverage

BitMEX also enables traders to margin trade where positions can be leveraged by placing orders larger than the users current balance which could lead to a higher profit.

However margin trading can be extremely dangerous for inexperienced traders as all profits can be quickly liquidated, meaning the amount of money in their wallet will be taken.

The maximum leverage a user can take out is 1:100 which is much greater than other exchanges who sit at 1:20

BitMEX Fees

For Perpetual contrats BitMex has a 00x leverage, -0.00250% maker fee, 0.0750% taker fee, 0.0100% long funding, short funding fee of -0.0100% with a funding interval of every 8 hours.

The traditional futures fees for all tradable assets have a similar maker fee from -0.0250% – -0.0500%, although the leverage varies from 20x for example with Tron right up to 100x with Ethereum.

Deposits and Withdrawals

At present BitMex does not charge fees on withdrawals or deposits. When a user withdraws Bitcoin, the minimum network fee is set automatically based on the blockchain load which is currently low.

Users can withdraw and deposit Bitcoin at their leisure with no limits although the minimal deposit is 0.001 BTC.

To withdraw or deposit, a QR coded address is displayed when clicking the “account” tab along the top pane.

Although a user can withdraw Bitcoin at anytime, BitMEX has implemented a cut off time set at 13:00 UTC which means if you process a withdrawal after that it will be completed the next working day. This has been designed to stop automated deposits and withdrawals by bots or hackers on the hot wallet and provides the staff with sufficient time to cancel any fraudulent withdrawals.

Is BitMEX Safe?

BitMEX states on its website that it does not compromise security for convenience with their ethos based on rigorous and well tested security measures to make the platform bullet proof.

The deposit and withdrawal system is multisignature which means each time this processes is initiated its then checked by the majority of BitMex partners to ensures its legitimacy. By using multisignature it prevents users funds from being accessed by a hacker if they manage to compromise the hosting server or database.

The BitMEX trading engines uses kdb+ which is a database and toolset used by major banks and other high speed financial trading platforms.

PGP encryption is used for all communication across the board

BitMEX Customer Support

BitMEX runs a mixture of support and contact methods including IRC, Reddit, Twitter, support tickets and email contact for dealing with customer enquiries 24/7 which has often been praised as responsive on reddit.

Customers can also access an extensive frequently asked questions section for basic enquiries they may have.

Conclusion

BitMEX has an established following among traditional Wall Street traders who are familiar with margin trading. The platform is not designed or marketed towards beginners who simply want to purchase Bitcoin. In fact this is not even possible at the moment as you must own/ deposit Bitcoin before using the platform. So if you are looking to trade with futures and take advantage of the 100x margin, BitMEX is for you!

We advise everyone to start with a small trade due to the high potential losses which can occur with the type of trading on offer.

Users with no prior trading experience whom are simply looking to buy Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies we recommend stepping away from BitMEX, you may want to read our review on the Binance exchange which is more user friendly for beginners.

Pro’s

Great for experienced traders

Can leverage 100x

Fast trading engine

Con’s

Hard to use for new traders

Can loose funds quite easily if not familiar with leverage trading

Controls a large portion of the market

Thanks for reading our BitMEX review, if you would like to visit the website for more information please visit: https://www.bitmex.com or check out the Reddit for any community support queries here: https://www.reddit.com/r/BitMEX/

We think these altcoins should be part of your 2019 investment portfolio

Sia

The cloud storage industry is currently dominated by DropBox, Google, Microsoft and Amazon. These companies have taken the lion’s share of customers in the file hosting space however this is very likely to change. A small and fairly unknown blockchain startup going by the name of Sia aims to end this monopoly by redefining the technology and processes behind cloud storage.

The current methods of storage rely on massive data centres and server farms to both store and retrieve data. This centralised approach creates a number of issues. For example:

Control – One company having full control over your data.

Ownership – Who owns your data and how will they use it, sell it and profit off of it.

Security – Centralisation means bugs, malpractice and hackers can target very specific companies and infrastructure. In fact DropBox lost 68 customer million passwords not so long ago and for a short period of time and any user could access the data of other users at will.

As these companies become even bigger the issues above become compounded.

The blockchain technology behind Sia is completely new for the industry and takes a more decentralised approach to solve the issues above.

When a customer uploads a file to the network it is automatically encrypted and split up into hundreds of tiny pieces. Only the uploader has the private keys to decrypt and view this data. All these encrypted pieces of data are then uploaded across many hosts and duplicated for impeccable redundancy.

With Sia storage is no longer controlled or owned by a company. Instead anyone can become a file hoster by leasing spare unused hard drive space to store encrypted data. File hosters and uploaders create a sort of digital handshake called a ‘smart contract’ which manages the storing of data between the two parties and pays the renter for the hard drive being used by the uploader.

With Sia clearly solving very real storage issues and making great progress with the project we believe it is a great time to invest in the project.

A $1,000 investment today would get you 113,000 Sia.

Ripple

For example the current Faster Payments banking service is an initiative between several banks to reduce the time of transfers between registered bank accounts. However transfers outside of that scheme take much longer and are routed through third party intermediaries. This process is not only risky but also labour and time intensive. Ripple solves these problems.

At the time of writing over 100 banks across the globe are trialling Ripple’s blockchain technology. Some of these banks include Santander, UniCredit and most recently the world’s largest Islamic bank, Al Rajhi Bank.

We think the technology behind Ripple will likely become the financial industry standard in the not too distant future.

Ripple has been within the top ten 24 hour volume across all cryptocurrencies and assets for several months now and it’s XRP currency has reached highs of $0.40.

A $1,000 investment today would get you 5,400 Ripple.

Stratis

The Microsoft backed Stratis platform is known as the C# equivalent to Ethereum. It enables programmers to produce decentralised, smart contract based apps very quickly and easily using a tried and tested programming language that has stood the test of time.

This opens it up to an already massive developer base with little to no additional learning required, giving it a clear edge over Ethereum.

Stratis is also poised to release its long awaited TumbleBit service and smart contracts in Q3 of this year and is developing the “Breeze Wallet”, a wallet feature that aims to boost privacy of both Bitcoin and Stratis users.

In the last month Stratis saw significant highs followed by a very quick drop. The coin reached all time highs of $11 but currently trades at $3. This is an ideal opportunity to buy in whilst the price is still low.

A $1,000 investment today would get you 160 Stratis.

Golem

Golem is on track to becoming the world’s first decentralised supercomputer. It utilizes the Ethereum blockchain to harness the unused/ idle power of millions of connected resources and turns it into sellable computing power.

Many companies and individuals require a service like this and currently have resort to small scale farms that can take days to process/ render and cost a small fortune.

For example games developers, film studios, data mining operations and medical researchers have to use vast amounts of processing power to complete very specific tasks. With Golem all these companies will have an always accessible, affordable supercomputer at their fingertips.

With its vast processing power Golem can also be used for making predictions across different industries such as betting, stock markets and even environmental changes.

Anyone with a computer can lease their unused processing power and in return get paid in GNT tokens. These tokens can be re-used, transferred to an exchange for trading or sold for more traditional currencies such as USD/GBP.

When taking a step back and assessing Golems end goal it offers a very unique investment opportunity not seen with any other project. It has many real world, life changing uses and the possibilities are endless.

Sitting at just $0.23 cents Golem is criminally cheap right now.

A $1,000 investment today would get you 3,500 Golem.

Monero

Monero is somewhat of a crypto veteran. The coin doesn’t mince its words and does one thing, albeit extremely well. It is currently the most secure and private coin on the market.

Anyone looking to make a safe long term investment would be wise to invest in it. The coin is seen as the ‘gold standard’ for privacy conscious users looking to stay permanently in the shadows. In fact Monero is in the top 5 most used cryptocurrencies for day to day purchases and traded across the Dark Web making it one of the few coins that is actually used as a currency.

Verge

Like Monero it is aimed at users who take privacy seriously and combines Tor and i2p technologies to increase blockchain anonymity.

The project has one of the most active communities with a huge development team regularly ticking off new and exciting features on the roadmap. In June alone Seven major new features were pushed live.

Everything from Tor based Android wallets to RSK Smart Contracts are planned for July making this coin one to watch, especially at its current price. Despite recent price volatility the project is moving at a very quick pace and we believe this will be reflected in its price very soon.

So that’s it! There are many other projects we would have liked to add and others that ‘sound great’ (ICO frenzy anyone!!). As these projects mature and show their progress they will also be assessed and our verdicts shared. Good luck.

Today, KuCoin blockchain asset exchange is thrilled to announce on its latest listing of another promising project Decred, an autonomous digital currency.

Decred’s native token DCR is now available for deposit with trading pairs including DCR/BTC and DCR/ETH. Buying commence at 19:30 UTC+8 while Selling/Withdrawal at 20:00 UTC+8.

All trading activities are done utilizing their Android and iOS apps, or through their official site, www.kucoin.com.

About Decred (DCR)

Decred (DCR) is an autonomous digital token where its stakeholders are part of the decision-making as it has a decentralized and sustainable highlight giving the term as “a self-ruling token.” This cryptocurrency has organized its priorities as having decentralized administration and the creation of settlements on the blockchain.

How Decred (DCR) Run

Decred uses an advance hybrid Proof-of-Work and Proof-of-Stake to validate the blocks accessible. Therefore, the stakeholders or the token holders are contributing the approvals to the coin miners buliding the blocks for rewards. It is a unique system as it ensures that the miners are not there just for the short term profits on their investment on their hardware.

The Core Team

Decred had a humble beginning as it started as a projection established in April 2013 by Adam Mckenzie. The present project leader and CEO of Company Jake Yacom-Piah accumulated, developed and launched Decred in March 2014.

Over the past years, it has collaborated with many other members into its team with the lead developer Dave Collins. The team focuses and fully involves in developing Decred be the first ever Decentralized Autonomous Entity.

Spire Bank, will be instrumental in facilitating a wide variety of international Crypto banking activity in association with Blockbank

Blockbank has purchased a stake in Spire bank & declared a strategic FinTech partnership, as a means to provide an international Crypto banking services. One of the leading commercial banks in Kenya, Spire Bank, will be instrumental in facilitating a wide variety of international Crytpto banking activity in association with Blockbank — to present the world’s first fully licensed crypto bank with low-cost funding availability.

Yusuf Sozi (L) and Adam Cuffe (R) (1)

Spire Bank, Headquartered in Nairobi top commercial banking entity, fully licensed by the Central Bank of Kenya is valued at having total asset worth of around 180million USD. Originally established as a finance company in 1983 and later commencing operations as a fully-fledged commercial bank, Spire Bank brings a wealth of FinTech knowledge and experience to the table to assist Blockbank in their endeavour. With 350,000 existing customers and a firmly-established high quality reputation, the prestigious Kenyan bank provides a solid foundation for Blockbank’s first step into supplying secured and affordable financing options for emerging economies.

The strategic FinTech partnership with Spire Bank will see the incubation of a DDMS smart contract blockchain system – the backbone of Blockbank’s platform – enabling Blockbank to provide lower cost funding solutions via Spire Banks’ infrastructure. With the capacity to provide a plethora of international banking services, Spire Bank is predicted to be a real asset to the Blockbank assembly, driving the expansion of global banking capabilities for both parties.

The collaboration of these two organizations will be a major breakthrough in fostering the development of low-cost funding options for governments and commercial entities worldwide – particularly in developing economies without current access to these services. In many developing countries, borrowing is still very expensive; with rates sometimes hitting 20%. In some countries borrowing is so expensive, the borrower has to pay enough money to pay the whole loan in 5 years just in interest payments.

28,800,000 tokens dedicated towards the ICO sale (72% of the total tokens);
8,000,000 tokens dedicated towards the treasury (20% of the total tokens);
2,000,000 tokens distributed amongst advisors (5% of the total tokens);
1,200,000 tokens will be a bounty reward (3% of the total tokens);

A staggering $12,830,000 worth of their BBRT tokens has already been sold during the pre-ICO phase.

Tokens available on the Block bank website: https://TheBlock-Bank.com/

PlayUp, the Australian-based gaming firm behind one of the most promising token sales this year has already clocked over one million users across its ecosystem before the forecasted date.

The platforms universal gaming token, PlayChip will revolutionise the online gaming industry when integrated into its seven platforms which are already fully licensed with a growing user-base.

When the blockchain platform launches on the 19th of December 2018 the user-base will be able to participate in the seven different gaming platforms whether they are looking to take part in sport betting, casino games, fantasy sports or eSports, it will all be streamlined with the PlayChip token.

PlayChip’s ecosystem has gained traction in the USA, UK, Australia and India with a presence in 70 countries around the world.

The initial coin offering has bucked the current trend of projects launching with merely nothing more than a website, PlayChip have done this with what’s called a ‘reverse-ICO” whereby the current ecosystem is tokenized and integrated into a fully operating business with a user-base and revenue.

“PlayChip is truly a unique token offering because while others write white papers about potential audiences and hypothetical use cases, PlayChip is well positioned with a very active global audience on multiple platforms that are already part of the PlayChip family,” Luke Lombe, Head of Blockchain with PlayChip said.

“The team at PlayChip are thrilled about hitting the million-user mark earlier than expected, and we look forward to continued strong growth. We are in the middle of our pre-sale and very much focussed on delivering a quality product that surpasses the expectations of our loyal following.”

The seven gaming platforms in the PlayChip ecosystem include PlayUp, DraftStars, Betting.Club, ClassicBet, TopBetta, MadBookie, and 123Bet. All players will be able to seamlessly move between platforms via the integrated PlayWallet and instantly cash out via the PlayXchange. In FY2018, these platforms are on track to exceed a turnover of US$430 million.

Earlier this week we had the pleasure of speaking with the team behind PAKET. In an exclusive CoinSpectator interview, to find out more about a blockchain startup aiming to create a decentralised and global package delivery network that gives power back to the people.

PAKET is going full speed ahead with a token sale on the Stellar platform, BUL their digital token will be used to pay for deliveries.

Let’s begin:

1. Many delivery firms already offer a tracking service where customers goods can be tracked in real-time. what benefits will Paket bring to this with Blockchain technology?

The real-time tracking is only one part of the protocol we offer, not the main part. To be more precise, we hope other apps on the protocol will develop and offer a much more blockchain sophisticated tracking solution. For example, we can cooperate with protocols like FOAM to ensure a provable location that can’t be manipulated.

But our main goal is to join all of these different solutions and create a single global mesh of delivery, without a central authority.

2. Can you explain why Stellar was the blockchain of choice? many other ICO’s are lured by Ethereum.

We are blockchain agnostic. Ethereum didn’t meet our engineering standards for a robust production platform. We chose the Stellar network as it connects payments, systems, and people, it can move value quickly, reliably, securely, and at almost no cost. Stellar is a perfect match for our need for a low friction transactional layer. We chose Stellar as our initial consensus layer for its level-headedness, its blazingly fast transaction rate, and its extremely low fees. From all the mature distributed ledger platforms currently active in the market, Stellar was the obvious decision for us.

3. Would a delivery system on the blockchain pose a security risk? for example 3rd parties being able to snoop on the location of high valued goods in transit?

The PAKET protocol features only specific data related only to the payment on the ledger. The only information available on the ledger is the smart contracts that govern the payment and the collateral. All other information, such as addresses, content etc, remains in layers 2 and 3 and are not public.

4. Will Paket work on a bidding system where anyone who is verified can bid to deliver a package? E.g a local firm may want 10 x boxes moving from a to b and place the quote on the blockchain.

Exactly! Since PAKET is a purely decentralized entity, we do not govern pricing or any other delivery terms, nor charge any fee. All prices are agreed between the participating parties – sender and courier. The protocol was designed in a way that allows all couriers to offer price and compete for deliveries. The basic delivery terms include price, deadline, and collateral. Bidding and competitive pricing are embedded in the concept as they create the most efficient solution for each specific delivery.

5. How does Paket plan to build a network of delivery drivers, what would make them come from other firms? What are the benefits?

A key element of the protocol is that it charges nothing. NO commission, NO hidden fees, NO middleman. Every company works hard to get demand, but by joining this free network it immediately becomes a part of a global network, with global opportunities. We provide a protocol where all existing, new, opportunistic individuals and companies can access demand – packages that need deliveries and engage directly with the package sender. The protocol only provides more data and convenience, it is not a competition between delivery firms.

Think of some local delivery company in Barcelona, with 5 motorcycles, that deliver local items in the city. They spend resources to make themselves known in Barcelona. But once they join the network, the entire network is exposed to them. Now I can send a package to Barcelona, knowing that they can handle it. They get global demand, which costs them nothing.

6. Does the team behind Paket have any transport experience or in a similar sector?

Currently, our core team is comprised of blockchain enthusiasts, community, biz dev and technical experts. Our advisory team includes a former Maersk executive (largest freight company in the world) and we are maintaining close connections to additional logistic professionals. It is important to understand that we have no ambition to become a logistics/transport company per se, we are a distributed ledger protocol company.

7. Why type of savings can be potentially made by using Paket over UPS for example?

UPS, like all other large delivery companies, are doing a great job on the international leg but suffer significantly on the “last mile”. It’s easier to carry many packages in a plane between airports than to use a track to dispense all of the packages in a large city.

PAKET is not here to replace UPS, it is here to break the package route into separate legs and allow the most efficient player take only his most efficient leg. If UPS is the cheapest freight operator and the quickest solution to deliver a package between New York Newark and Ataturk airport in Turkey, it should still be used for this part of the journey. But once the package lands in the crowded streets of Istanbul, it should be placed at the hands of a local courier that can make the last mile journey most efficiently. This way UPS can provide the best price quote, as it is no longer required to make door to door deliveries using trucks and fight local traffic. If the package avoids lending in a huge warehouse/ logistics center for sorting, then the delivery time is shortened and additional charges are no longer required.

8. When will the platform be live?

The platform is available on test network and we welcome all to access our GitHub account and our developers’ page to follow all the development that was already made. Our MVP will be available in the coming weeks, and we currently plan to go live with a basic service before year-end.

9. Will front end customers pay with the BUL tokens or will this only be FIAT ?

We want to create the most seamless user experience, but remember that we create only one application, completely open source, and we hope (and incentivize) that others create additional applications. Any developer can take our application and add a payment system to his local solution. He can even charge a conversion fee if he wants to earn from it. We give complete freedom, and the protocol charges nothing.

10. How many customers/ users do you expect the platform to attract in the next 12 months?

We expect our early adopters in the next 12 months to be crypto enthusiasts, those who believe decentralization is the best solution for the delivery of goods (well those who believe that decentralization is the best solution for many other market inefficiencies actually). We will also add delivery and courier companies to answer any demand the network creates until the network is strong enough to be completely independent.

We had the pleasure of chatting with Alexander Varvarenko, CEO and Founder of SHIPNEXT, in an exclusive CoinSpectator.com interview, to find out more about one of the most promising blockchain companies in the freight industry.

Not heard of SHIPNEXT? The firm is digitalising the shipping industry with some amazing technology that aims to revolutionise how we deal with cargo.

Let’s begin:

1. Which organisation was the first to use the SHIPNEXT technology? How are they benefiting so far from using the platform?

SHIPNEXT is a product built using linear programming. natural language processing, machine learning and big data analysis. Anyone who sends a Freight request of a Ship’s position to SHIPNEXT gets an instant reply with one or more matches. The first company to use our technology was VARAMAR.

VARAMAR receives close to 10.000 emails each day, and prior using SHIPNEXT most of the clients remained without reply. In most of the cases for routes and segments where VARAMAR is not strong or not present. As a result of switching to SHIPNEXT, almost all the clients who sent their cargo/freight requests receive an instant reply with a solution.

2. The shipping industry still uses mainly paper for issuing proof of ownership; how is your solution different?

Shipping Industry is very traditional, and, historically, a “word” is considered a “bond”. The news on a breach of verbal agreement travels fast leading to bad reputation. With time any electronic message, be it an sms or an email with recapitulation of agreed terms and conditions gained force. Express bills of lading, electronic copies of Charter parties (contracts) or bills of lading are not uncommon neither.

SHIPNEXT created a solution which helps speed up the process of issuing an electronic version of a correctly filled in Charterer Party to literally a second. The open source bill of lading solution which SHIPNEXT created can be freely used by anyone to print secure, correctly and transparently made Bills of Lading.

The transport industry may not be broken, but it is highly inefficient. Corruption, theft of cargo and freight, delays in transit and penalties arising as a result – these and more haunt the industry and lead add to the cost of the transported goods.

Blockchain is a technology that allows bring relative transparency, safety and efficiency. Its responsiveness to real-time data can avoid unnecessary losses – things which human being are sometimes simply not capable of being able to react to.

4. What inspired you to launch SHIPNEXT? Do you have a background in the shipping industry?

Before joining a Maritime University, I developed my own games and software. Ever since I always challenged traditional approach and technology in a conservative transport industry. With over 17 years experience in Shipping, let alone heavy and oversized cargo transportation, which I was mainly involved in, I understood that no matter what the cargo looks like, many processes remain the same.

That also involves a lot of routine and repetitive work, cross-checks, calculations, information search, and email exchange. Ass work flow grows, possibility for human error and inefficient decision-making increases.

Moreover, at a certain moment I saw most of my commercial managers remain their whole day behind their computer screen trying to catch up with the incoming email flow. With thousands incoming emails a day, some of them may remain unattended or missed.

I decided to digitalized the process of processing all the incoming emails, making routine calculations and cross-checks, calculations based on 80+ different data bases and, eventually, help professional managers make better commercial judgement, negotiations and, eventually, digitalized the documentation flow.

5. Have you approached any large organizations to tease them into using SHIPNEXT? If so what are their initial impressions

We have approached a number of large companies. Some of them have also started using SHIPNEXT, others are in the testing phase.

Some of the larger groups have already announced the launch of their in-house reverse auctioning platforms. Most of the companies initiated digitalization of their internal work-flow. All this is a good sign and a perfect opportunity for SHIPNEXT. However, with shipping being one of the most conservative sectors of ths transport industry, the process of digitalization will take a few years, until it, at least, catches up with other industries.

6. Are you focusing just on the shipping industry or with future plans to export to transport or even regional/ local deliveries ?

SHIPNEXT is looking for partners to help deliver a solution for wet bulk (tanker) shipping, and well a container liner shipping companies, to complete the work on SHIPNEXT’s container-related solution.

Other modes of transport will be included in the ecosystem with the help of other partners and solution providers only. Such cooperation is also a way to create a network of solutions, thus taking a step further towards a decentralized ecosystem.

7. How will a regular consumer benefit from SHIPNEXT?

SHIPNEXT helps save hundreds and thousands of work hours, build a reliable network of service providers, eliminate human error, receive up to date and real-time information to improve decision making.

8. How much volume in terms of weight has passed through the platform since lunching?

At any given moment SHIPNEXT contains thousands of cargoes (freight requests) as well as up to 18.000 ship’s positions. Anyone sending a Ship position or a Freight request by email to SHIPNEXT (at fix@shipnext.com) receives an instant feedback containing the most efficient match.

9. Do you see any regulatory issues proceeding with the platform in the future?

SHIPNEXT is a patented solution, and digitalized as well as automates the day to day processes taking place in Shipping. Each Shipper is able to use his own Contract forms or integrate SHIPNEXT algorithms into his internal work flows.

SHIPNEXT users make their own choice of using SHIPNEXT or not.

10. What is the SHIPNEXT token used for and how is it useful ?

SHIPNEXT has 2 tokens.

Ship Coin (SHPC) is a security token, giving its holders a stake in the company results and equity.

Ship Token (SHPT) on the other hand is a utility token – a tool given to banks and crypto-banks for issue and further use within SHIPNEXT as means of payment under Shipping Smart-contracts.

SHIPNEXT offers an escrow-like process of freight payment. This brings the necessary reliability and safety of transactions, as well as reassurance of contract execution. Freight is reserved on an escrow, is paid in parts upon gradual execution of cargo carriage, and ensures payments for bunker, canal transit, port dues, handling costs, etc.

11. Will any external organizations such as the authorities / or even the public have live or historic access to the blockchain?

Certainly the access of authorities to a supply chain related blockchain ecosystem is inevitable. Customs authorities alone are an integral part of the import and export control, and, on the other hand, a source of information which can be also used in Smart Contracts.

To influence the data, however, and participate in such blockchain based supply chain, authorities much themselves transform and adapt their documentation processing.

Healthy interactions with authorities in a decentralized ecosystem will help ensure safety and reliability of its work, simplify documentation handling and reduce costs.

Tron’s native currency TRX is now available for deposit with trading pairs such as TRX/BTC and TRX/ETH. Buying will start at 19:30 (UTC+8) while Selling/Withdrawal at 220:00 (UTC+8).

The TRON Network (TRX)

TRON (TRX) is a blockchain – based cryptocurrency platform that aims to decentralize content-sharing on the World Wide Web and the Internet as a whole. It gives artists and creators the possibility of releasing their content without having to use centralized 3rd party platforms such as Facebook, Youtube, and the like.

The Company behind the TRON Project

Mr. Justin Sun founded the TRON Foundation in September 2017 with a headquartered in Singapore. The cryptocurrency project associated with it is called the TRON Block Explorer or the
TRON Network (TRX).

The TRON currency is one of the latest and most popular cryptocurrencies on the market. However, it aims to create a platform that is very different from the typical cryptocurrencies.

With that being said, the TRON Foundation looks forward to gear up with the digital content and entertainment industry. It works on the related concepts of decentralization and distributed storage technology but targeted at the massive global content and entertainment industry. Content sharing will be performed through the blockchain and its peer–to–peer (p2p) network technology. In essence, the TRON Network goes beyond the uses of conventional cryptocurrencies:

• Eradicate middlemen who connect content creators to users.
• Content creators to receive revenue directly from their users and consumers.
• Apart from eradicating middlemen in the payment process, this also reduces traffic dependency on sites such as Facebook, etc. This is because traffic will be streamlined back to the content creators, removing the need for hits and views on middleman sites.

The TRON Network (TRX) Roadmap Plan

The TRON Network (TRX) is currently in the first phase of their roadmap. This stage, called Exodus, which is focused on data liberation. The purpose is to have a completely functional platform to publish, store, and share digital content by the end of the year 2018. In its current phase, it has the advantage of being less likely to have bugs in the code considering it has already been tested.

Apart from the Exodus phase, here are the other phases of the TRON Network’s roadmap:

• Phase 2: Odyssey – This phase focuses on eradicating middlemen services and giving the profits directly to content publishers.
• Phase 3: Great Voyage – Scheduled to start in Summer 2020, this phase explains why TRON’s current code structure resembles Ethereum as its purpose is to allow for “Personal Initial Coin Offerings,” similar to Ethereum token sales. In other words, individual content creators can hold ICOs to raise capital that allows them to produce more and better content.
• Phase 4: Apollo – Aims to create a fully decentralized trading platform for all the individual tokens created on Tron.
• Phase 5: Star Trek – Takes the concept to the next level by developing a decentralized gaming platform for developers to design online games.
• Phase 6: Eternity – Allows developers to build entire gaming platforms on Tron and allows general investors to invest in specific games and networks.

KuCoin exchange announces today that they have listed the primary and transaction currency of the internet focused decentralized platform, Merculet MV.

Deposit is now available using KuCoin’s app on any iOS or Android devices or to their official website www.kucoin.com. Buying commences at 19:30 UTC+8 and Selling/Withdrawal at 20:00 UTC+8 with trading pairs MVP/BTC and MVP/ETH.

About Merculet MVP

Merculet derived from Mercury and Blocklet, the Roman God of Commercial and the cornerstone of the blockchain, use blockchain technology to improve the relations between consumers, producers, and investors. It allows users to monetize their application. As an addition, it also assists businesses to increase their businesses by producing a good review ecosystem and the re-distribution of the trillion-dollar value-driven economy.

It has also generated an Attention Value Network (token: MVP). It connects the supply and market sides of attention with an open contract suite to promote good circulation of the Internet of Value.

Attention Value Network

Mobile Internet is mostly about traffic. The Internet of Value derived from the mobile Internet is essentially an attention economy.

Merculet presents a holistic solution to help companies and users embrace the attention economy and build a distributed, value­focused network. It connects and performs the match and value exchange between the supply and demand side of attention.

It consists of three central components: The UAV (User Attention Value) evaluation system, User Attention Token(UAT) as the foundation of attention incentive system and Open Content Platform to solve the problem of attention source.

The MVP Token

MVP is short for Merculet Value Protocol and a standard ERC20 public chain asset.

Enterprises can immediately access other application circulation scenarios by anchoring their own UAT and MVP, or interact with the ecology of another public chain world; MVP also supports ecologically beneficial behaviors and introduces strategic priorities. Incentive resources to assure the healthy and orderly evolution of the entire growth ecology.

MVP is the cornerstone of Merculet Attention Value System and anchored by UAT. MVP could connect various enterprises by certain rates and promote the value distribution between them.

Meanwhile, MVP also implement better support for enterprises from various aspects.

The difference between UAT and MVP

UAT is distributed within the technical support of Merculet. It establishes the contractual relationship between each company and its users. It is mainly used to circulate as the operation tools within the company. The initial operation is in the Internet Asset Layer which maintained by Merculet and the entrepreneurs. It also could mapping their asset to the public chain according to the requirements of the enterprise;

In short, entrepreneurs could assign their UATs and offer to users according to the user’s UAV which based on their own operating rules. MVP comes from the Merculet Token Pool and soft­mining in different ways. Different UATs will run in specific APP/enterprise, while MVP will circulate over different apps/enterprises within the Merculet Ecology.

For the past years, online booking concerns on hotels and other accommodations have been a common issue among individuals. Extra charges have been imposed that becomes economically unwise especially to budgeted travelers. Locktrip, the first and one of its kind, is a blockchain based decentralized project that aims to solve this problem.

Today, as part of their marketing extension, they are proudly announcing that they have listed their native currency LOC to one of the leading cryptocurrency exchanges in the world, KuCoin.

LOC token is now available for deposit utilizing KuCoin’s Android and iOS apps, or to their official website, www.kucoin.com.

Other transactions such as buying start at 19:30 UTC+8 and selling/withdrawal at 20:00 UTC+8.

About Locktrip

LockTrip is a marketplace intended for travelers who want to obtain cheaper rates through the absence of expensive intermediaries. Like most centralized websites, property owners often contract costly fees that are passed down to the consumer when booking hotels and other accommodations. LockTrip aims to significantly lower these rates.

How Locktrip Works

Modern travel websites that aid booking accommodations, such as Expedia or Airbnb, are centralized and thus demand some charges towards both property owners and customers, and additionally require middlemen to transact payments. LockTrip will evade the need for these expenses by setting the marketplace on the Ethereum blockchain, which will decentralize the process and offer full transaction transparency.

Property owners will be provided the opportunity to add and update their listings on the easy to access LOC Ledger interface. With the offer of simplicity and one-click solutions, proprietors will find LockTrip not only saves them money but executes the transfer of listings from current platforms especially easy.

Customers also experience savings and usability with the help of LockTrip. With access to both a desktop and mobile marketplace, LockTrip will offer easy to use explications for travelers searching for rental accommodations, and a lack of commission fees will support them continue to save money.

The LOC Token

The whole LockTrip system is established on the LOC token, which will be presented available during a token sale. Hotel and property owners who want to be listed on the LockTrip marketplace are compelled to hold LOC tokens; however, renters do not significantly need them, as any currency they use to book will be automatically shifted to LOC. However, the utility of fiat or non-native currency will result in marketplace charges that can be circumvented with the use of LOC.

LockTrip is the first step in the decentralization of hotel and short-term rental property booking, and with the presentation of money-saving choices for both owners and renters and an easy to use marketplace, it may transform the concept of booking effectively.